ON SUNDAY, FEB. 24, THE Board of Education gathered to vote on whether to extend Superintendent Dr. Bruce Borchers’ contract through June 30, 2016.
By a vote of 4-3, his contract extension passed.
Yet on Thursday, March 28, 495 miles away in Tennessee, Dr. Borchers announced his finalist position for superintendent of Oak Ridge School District.
“Some of you may have read or heard about my interviewing with the Oak Ridge School District in Tennessee,” Dr. Borchers said in a letter to members of the Rockwood Administrative Council. “This is an opportunity for me and my family that we felt we had to consider.”
On Monday, April 1, Oak Ridge Board of Education’s five members voted unanimously to offer Dr. Borchers a contract to lead the district.
And two Mondays later, on April 15, Dr. Borchers officially signed his contract with the Oak Ridge School District.
“Its a done deal,” Keys Fillauer, chairman of Oak Ridge’s Board, said. “Everything is ready to go.”
Dr. Borchers was unavailable to comment.
Ray and Associates, the executive search firm that performed the superintendent search for Oak Ridge, had set an application deadline of Friday, March 1. This gave Dr. Borchers less than one week to submit his information to the firm if he had done so after the contract extension vote.
Stephen Banton, former Rockwood board member, voted to extend Dr. Borchers’ contract.
“Dr. Borchers made it clear that if the vote were less than 5-2, he would seriously consider leaving,” Banton said.
Banton said that Sunday night, board members met with the understanding that the margin of the vote would be a vote in and of itself. Although a 4-3 vote would extend the contract, it would send the implicit message that the Board actually wished Dr. Borchers to move on.
A vote to terminate Dr. Borchers’ contract could have had three potential disadvantages. First, as both Banton and former Board President Janet Strate pointed out, Dr. Borchers met each of the Board’s targets and goals.
“And if a superintendent meets all the given goals and his contract isn’t extended, he could sue,” Banton said.
Second, according to Banton, a superintendent without an extended contract is essentially a “lame duck superintendent.”
“Hypothetically, you have to endure him for another two years when he knows he will be out of there soon,” Banton said. “He may not do his absolute best.”
Third, the district would have had to pay the superintendent about $500,000 if the Board had failed to extend the contract; whereas, a superintendent leaving of his own volition would receive no extra compensation.
The vote outcome, 4-3, wasn’t exactly a surprise. Banton said both Dr. Borchers and other members of the Board likely knew how the vote would fall.
“When you work continuously with the same people a year or longer, I would say he pretty much had to know what was coming down,” Banton said.
Board President Bill Brown voted not to extend Dr. Borchers’ contract. Brown said he wasn’t terribly surprised at the news of Dr. Borchers’ leaving the district.
“With that slim margin and the elections coming up, it wasn’t a shock for him to seek employment,” Brown said. “I would have done the same.”
Banton said a defining characteristic of Dr. Borchers’ term was his tendency to “communicate more details with his president and vice president than the whole Board.”
Until voted out of his position, Banton was the longest standing member of the Board. In his 15-year term, Banton had served on the Board under Superintendents Dr. John Oldani, Dr. Gary Matthews, Dr. Craig Larson and most recently, Dr. Borchers.
“Compared to other superintendents, Dr. Borchers was more formal, more interested in the facts and not necessarily good with people,” Banton said.
Dr. Keith Kinder, board member, also voted to extend Dr. Borchers’ contract.
“Dr. Borchers did a good job. He was in a no-win situation,” Dr. Kinder said. “By voting yes, I thought that if anything came up and he wanted to leave, the affirmative vote would help him out in his future job seeking.”
Dr. Borchers is expected to take a $59,600 pay cut in his new job. His current salary is $234,600. His salary in Oak Ridge is set at $175,000. Dr. Borchers will also oversee a much smaller district. Rockwood has a student enrollment of 21,951 students while Oak Ridge has 4,430 students.
“We’re a little different in the makeup of our student population,” Fillauer said. “We do have lower socioeconomic students.”
Oak Ridge started their search for a new superintendent in August. In the first round of consideration, board members were unable to find a suitable candidate. The Board then had the search firm reopen the search, increasing the range of offered salary.
“He told us he was a very hands-on Superintendent and wanted to be in a smaller district so he could be involved,” Fillauer said. “That became very evident when he visited and toured the schools.”
Dr. Borchers succeeded former Superintendent Dr. Craig Larson in 2010. Dr. Larson said Dr. Borchers “had done all the right training and had a suitable background in secondary education and curriculum.”
Dr. Borchers was, however, much younger than Dr. Larson, “but that was something the Board had been pretty direct about wanting.”
“I was available to meet with him and help him with the transition,” Dr. Larson said. “But we talked almost none at all.”
Soon after assuming his role, Dr. Borchers made headlines by hiring two consultants Nancy DuBois and Randy Smasal from his former district in Minnesota. DuBois and Smasal were each paid more than $30,000 for 17 days of consulting work they did while still full-time employees in Minnesota. They served brief stints as top administrators for Rockwood, but both have since left.
Later, citizen taxpayer group Rockwood Stakeholders for Real Solutions brought the district under fire for financial mismanagement. Their voices were heard and a February audit by State Auditor Tom Schweich criticized the district’s “cozy relationship with Glenn Construction Co,” and rated the district only “Fair.”
Days later, former board member Steve Smith resigned.
And in the most recent election, patrons failed the April bond issue and voted out of office former Board president Janet Strate and member Stephen Banton (who had both voted to extend Dr. Borchers’s contract).
Still, Fillauer said he’s excited to welcome Dr. Borchers into Oak Ridge.
“Our search firm was aware of the circumstances of Rockwood,” Fillauer said. “Our Board did an investigation and after we thoroughly understood what was going on, it was not an issue to us.”
Fillauer said the Board hopes to have Dr. Borchers in place by June.
Rockwood has two options for replacing Dr. Borchers: an interim superintendent that fills in for a year or a full-time replacement.
“We’re looking for someone who’s going to bring positive energy, respectability and a sense of trust back to Rockwood,” Brown said.
Brown, who entered office in 2012, emphasized his hopes for the future of the district.
“We’re going to get this right. It will get better.”